


Day 1

by stubliminalmessaging



Series: Gallavich Week 2014 [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gallavich Week 2014, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:30:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stubliminalmessaging/pseuds/stubliminalmessaging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carl has some questions about gay sex, and they're very different from his usual ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was suggested to me by muh homegirl kate (theabelincolnofmouthwhores.tumblr.com) who co-captains the bisexual!carl ship with me

It wasn’t weird that Carl had texted Ian asking if he could come over and hang out one afternoon. He didn’t do it terribly often but it wasn’t unheard of and Ian couldn’t blame him. Kid was seventeen now and the walls of the Gallagher house were closing in on him rapidly. Lip had finished college and moved back in and Fiona had a boyfriend living with them and taking up a bunch of space with his two kids. Debbie floated in and out of the house like a summer breeze but wasn’t terribly invasive… except when she was hiding out from a long queue of random men who asked after her relentlessly. She’d grown into something of a heartbreaker, which would be fine if some of the men weren’t pissed off and violent after being played by her.

Needless to say, Carl needed a break once in a while. So Ian said, yeah, for sure. He would be home early but Mickey wouldn’t be home till later so they could hang out and Carl could crash on their couch for the night if he wanted. Carl said okay but he really meant several hundred thank yous.

Later that night when Ian was doing the dishes from the night before a knock came at his door. He dried his hands on a dishtowel and left it hanging on the door to the fridge.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, grinning and pulling Carl in for a hug. Carl clapped him on the back and when they separated he punched at Ian’s abdomen playfully and smirked.

“Gonna let me in or do I gotta stand out here all night?” he asked and Ian shoved at him before letting him in. He didn’t get a chance to be a big brother very often and Mick was good for roughhousing but that usually turned into something else entirely when they did it.

He got Carl a beer and went back to his dishes. He watched Carl slump over to the couch and set his bag down beside it. He wandered back over to the counter where Ian was doing dishes and hauled himself up on it.

“Need a break from it, right?” Ian asked, setting the clean wet plates into the drying rack to drip dry. “Too much goin’ on at home?”

“Yeah,” Carl said. “Can’t really find anywhere quiet. It’s good to have an out with you two.”

“You know you can always stay with us,” Ian said. He finished up the rest of the dishes and pulled the plug in the sink. The water gurgled as it ran out, a testament to the shitty nature of their apartment. The doors were creaky and the pipes were shit and their fridge cut out for a week at a time but it was theirs. They were barely out of the South Side too but anything was better than living at the Milkovich house and obviously they couldn’t live at the Gallaghers’. They already pushed capacity without the boys (and occasionally Yevgeny) crashing there too. “Where you need anything, I’m here. For anything. Mickey, too.”

“In that case, I’ll let you two know if I need to hide a body,” Carl said, rolling his eyes. Ian gave him a look but he smiled a little. “Thanks, though. Got a lot of shit going on. It’s rough.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Nah, maybe later,” Carl said. He watched Ian finish up the dishes and then grinned maniacally at him. “Got any weed?”

Ian snorted. “Is that even a fucking question?”

-

Mickey got home from work three hours after Carl arrived and they were well into an American Horror Story marathon when he slouched in through the front door. He could hear the TV and smell the weed as he took slow steps into the living room.

He wasn’t terribly surprised to see Carl there – aside from Lip and Fiona, Carl was probably Ian’s next closest sibling, and even Fiona was starting to get distant now that she’d settled in with a man who had kids. She had someone else to mother and so Ian got less of her attention, which was fine most of the time.

Mickey walked past the back of the couch and the two of them didn’t even see him. He went to their room and dumped his dirty work clothes in the basket and changed into some sweats and a tshirt before he lit a smoke and wandered back out to the living room. Ian spotted him this time as he walked past to the kitchen to get a beer from the fridge.

“Mickey,” Ian said, passing the bong off to Carl and reaching for Mickey with both hands. Mickey leaned over the back of the couch to give Ian a kiss. Carl made exaggerated puking sounds as Ian reached up and held the back of Mickey’s head, thoroughly making out with him, and they both flipped him off.

Ian eventually let go and he straightened back up. He licked his lips as he walked to the fridge to get a beer. Ian tasted like weed and Mickey kind of felt a little high just kissing him. That probably wasn’t the pot though.

“Either of you want a beer?” he called, pulling the fridge open. They both replied in the affirmative and so Mickey came back with three beers and pushed Carl with his foot until he moved down the couch and then he took a seat next to Ian. He distributed the beers and turned his attention to the TV.

Ian didn’t ask him about his day or anything like that, just took his hand and held it. His eyes were glassy like starlight and Mickey kind of wished Carl wasn’t there so he’d have the courage to tell Ian just how pretty they looked. Speaking of Carl… “You staying here tonight, kid?”

“Yeah. Need a break from the Gallagher Family Zoo,” Carl replied. “Thought I’d spend the night with my two fave homos.”

“Fuck off,” Mickey said, opening his beer and taking a mouthful. They spent the rest of the night finishing off the beer Carl had brought and making an impressive dent in their stash of weed. They burned through the rest of the first season of their show before they eventually went to sleep. Ian got Carl some pillows and a blanket for the couch and bid him goodnight. When he’d gone through their bedroom to get the pillow Mickey had been waiting on the bed with a bottle of lube and a sleeve of condoms sitting meaningfully on the bed next to him. Ian hurried to the living room to give Carl his bedding and then rushed back to the bedroom.

“Ian,” Carl said, halting his brother in the entrance to the hallway. “Can we talk about my shit in the morning?”

“Yeah,” Ian replied. “Yeah, we can talk. Goodnight.”

“Okay. Night,” Carl said, picking up his pillow where Ian had set it on the coffee table. A little plastic packet of something fell to the floor and he stooped to pick it up. He looked down at the little packet of squishy yellow foam earplugs and frowned curiously. When he heard the door to Ian and Mickey’s bedroom close loudly he clued in and tore open the packet and stuffed them in his ears frantically. No way was he listening to that shit.

-

Carl didn’t wake up until eleven something, when the smell of French toast finally roused him. He sat up on the couch and shoved the blanket off himself. The earplug that had been in the ear that was against the pillow fell out in the middle of the night and was lost in the couch so he dug the other one out and flicked it on the floor. He scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and leaned against the back of the couch, watching Ian move around at the stove.

“Morning,” he croaked.

“Barely,” Ian said. He flipped a piece of French toast in the pan. “You usually sleep the whole day away?”

“Shit man, weren’t you ever seventeen?” Carl asked. He flopped back on the couch.

“If you’ll recall, I joined the army when I was seventeen,” Ian commented. He didn’t bother to continue with that thought and remind himself of the other things he’d done when he was seventeen. Carl broke the silence for him.

“How long you been up?”

“Since eight,” Ian replied.

“On a fuckin’ weekend?” Carl crowed.

“Yeah. I take my pills twice a day – nine in the morning and nine at night. I got used to the routine really quickly.”

“Jesus,” Carl sighed. He looked over the back of the couch again. “How are you so fucking chipper?”

“Morning sex really helps,” Ian said, grinning down at the pan. “It sure helped after being up so late last night.”

He turned the stove off and slid the last piece of French toast onto the last plate. He attacked each plate with cinnamon, then started moving them to the table.

That got Carl off the couch and he helped Ian finish setting the table. He took a seat and Ian set the syrup down on the table in front of him and let him loose on his breakfast. Ian chuckled as he watched Carl devour his meal. It wasn’t nice to watch, but it was nice to know that some things never changed.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Ian asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee and sitting down across from Carl.

“Relationships?” Carl said, voice going up at the end like he was confirming it with himself. “I met someone. Someone cool.”

“Yeah? You’ve had girlfriends before though, right?” Carl nodded. “Then what do you need help with?”

“This one’s a little different.”

Ian narrowed his eyes. “Carl, the way I hear it you’re picking up where Lip left off in his quest to bang every teenage girl in the South Side. How is she any different?”

“Well, to start with, she’s a he,” Carl answered. He didn’t give Ian the time to ask questions or react before he continued. “I just wanna know how you and Mickey got together or some shit. I don’t fucking know _how_ to like guys, especially not in this fucking neighbourhood.”

“…where did you meet him?” Ian asked, dumping sugar into his coffee in an effort to distract himself and recover. He really hoped Carl wasn’t cruising openly in the South Side… he’d get stabbed in an alley for sure.

“Nope, we’re not talking about me until you talk about you,” Carl insisted. Ian stirred his coffee thoughtfully and Carl prompted him again. “How did you and Mickey meet?” Actually, no. They lived in the same neighbourhood, they’d probably seen each other around. That wasn’t what Carl wanted to know. “Or how did you get together or whatever? Hook up?”

“That’s a really long and involved story,” Ian replied. “We started hooking up when I was fifteen but we didn’t officially get together until I was eighteen. We were pretty on-and-off in between. Mick went to juvie a couple times and I joined the army. It took a long time for us to come to a point where we considered ourselves together.”

“Three years? Why did it take so long?” Carl asked, brows drawn in confusion.

“Mickey was pretty deep in the closet when we started fucking. Your guy could be too. With this neighbourhood, I wouldn’t be surprised. It took Mick a long time to accept that he wanted to be with a guy and then he had his father to be terrified of.”

“Sounds shitty,” Carl mumbled, poking at his breakfast dejectedly.

“Don’t look so grim, man,” Ian said. “It’s gonna be better for you, I promise. You’ve got one of the most supportive families in all of Chicago. You don’t have to be alone like I was.”

“I couldn’t be alone if I tried,” Carl said, grinning a little. “Not in our house. You think Fiona will flip her shit if I bring home a black guy?”

Ian snorted. “Don’t think she’ll care. You’re already thinking about bringing him home?”

“Yeah, I dunno though,” Carl shrugged. “Don’t know if he wants more than a little action once in awhile, y’know?”

“You’ve had sex?” Ian asked, eyebrows raising.

“Nah. Just fucked around and made out a lot,” Carl replied. He got uncharacteristically shy suddenly.

“Well if you’ve kissed then you’ve made way more progress than Mick and I did for like two and a half years,” Ian said drily. Carl looked confused, and Ian went on. “Remember that time when Mick got shot and we all got split up in foster homes? That was the first time Mickey ever kissed me. He only did it because I practically dared him to.”

“Shit,” Carl laughed. “I gotta give you more credit, man. Don’t know if I could deal with that.”

“It’s good now, though. Apparently me running away for a few months was what he needed to get his ass in gear,” Ian said. Mickey wandered into the kitchen then, hair wet from the shower. “Mick, Carl’s bi.”

“Yeah?” Mickey asked, striding over and pouring himself a cup of coffee. He walked back over to the table and sat down, drowning his French toast in syrup. “Course he wants to get some dick after he heard us going as it last night.”

“And this morning,” Ian added.

“No, I’ve been hanging out with him for a few months. I didn’t wanna jump him until about a month ago and we started fooling around two weeks ago,” Carl said.

“What’s his name?” Ian asked.

“Ryan,” Carl replied. “He lives behind the high school.”

“He hot?” Mickey asked around a mouthful of French toast. “Got a big dick?”

Carl flushed a little, but nodded slowly. Mickey was going to ask which question that was an answer to but Ian got there first.

“Got any pictures?”

“Or him or his dick? ‘Cause I got both,” Carl said, digging out his phone.

“Him,” Ian replied, laughing. “You can keep any dick pics to yourself.”

“You can show me,” Mickey suggested, laughing when Ian kicked at his shins under the table. Carl ignored them, looking through pictures on his phone until he found the one he was looking for and showed it to the two men sitting across from him. He was gorgeous, dark and freckly with short dreads. He had big hands and strong shoulders and Mickey could definitely see the appeal. Ian liked his pretty eyes and brilliant smile.

Ian and Mickey both teased Carl about his guy and he told them to fuck off even as he flushed. Later he asked Ian what he should do about their situation. Ian asked him if he wanted Ryan to be his boyfriend and Carl said he thought he did.

“Better tell him that, then. Be blunt, make it clear. If you don’t want to be strung along and uncertain for three years, at least,” Ian told him.

“Yeah, no offense, but you can keep that heartwarming soul-bonding experience for yourself,” Carl said, grinning.


End file.
